Defiling the Temple

We had a sermon recently on the passage in the Gospel of John where Jesus clears the temple: “And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables; And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise. (John 2: 15, 36).

My mind had it’s own analogy and comparison to this scripture in connection with the temple and it seemed so simple and clear to me at that moment as it coincides with my study of our ‘vital union’. We think of a temple in terms of a building and it is it is God’s house, a building built by hands for worship. Christ told his disciples; John 14: 16, 17, 20: “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever. (17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. (20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." Here is Jesus speaking of His union with the Father and our union with Him and we know that this prayer was answered with the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

“Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16)

The Comforter comes to each believer, dwells in us and makes His abode in us; we are the temple of God. The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, He sheds abroad the love of the Father and the Son into our hearts, He alone applies the Truth of the Word to us, the promises of the Gospel we claim as our own, He is our pledge and it is by Him that we learn more of Christ and our vital union because He testifies in our hearts of Christ. Because the Spirit dwells in us we are exhorted:

1 Corinthians 6: 16, 20: “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? (20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s”

You see just as Jesus cleared the temple of defilement, the analogy became in my mind the comparison of our bodies as the dwelling temple of the Holy Spirit which we are to guard from defilement. We are cautioned we are beseeched to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God (Romans 12:1).

A most remarkable truth is that we are in vital union with Christ, therefore we have been united to Him in His death and burial, we have died and in His resurrection we have been raised to NEW life. What have we died to and what new life do we have in this, our vital union?